Morning came with scheming. “I believe it is traditional to silence the witnesses first.” Tian opened the discussion with an offer of fried bread sticks and a cup of green tea. Breakfast and conspiracy fit his mood nicely. Though, it had to be said, even though it was the season for green tea, the Heavenly Realm green tea he had found in the looted storage rings just wasn’t up to snuff. It beat drinking mortal fare, but it tasted a bit stale. Lacking in brightness, it had a sort of muted beany-ness and an unpleasant astringency.
He’d switch to a white tea after they drank this pot. Waste not, want not.
“Don’t there have to be witnesses before they can be silenced? Which means the crime must come before the silencing. Besides, we need to consider who even qualifies as a “witness” under the circumstances. As long as we are even a little careful, the only people we have to worry about are other Heavenly cultivators and there are only two of them left in the city. Other than us, obviously.”
“Our target, Daoist Lian, and Daoist Sweetdove. Who is apparently an artist from the Myriad Waters sect. What’s an artist doing in a border city that is also two parts military fortress? Burning Flag City is strategically important, but I think even a local would struggle to call it pretty.” Tian noticed Liren grimacing as she drank the tea. She hid it well, but he knew her. He suppressed a sigh. The tea wasn’t undrinkable. Maybe… maybe if he put the leaves in a pitcher of cold water and just let it slowly steep for a few hours? That might be nice.
“No idea. She’s not stirring up trouble, and I heard some Earthly cultivators saying she was an artist. Do you think that… no, never mind.”
“What? Go on. We are scheming. All ideas on the table.” He gently rapped the battered wood.
“What if we blended the green tea with some fruit juice or something? Something sweet that could be moderated by the tea.”
Tian gasped and recoiled, then frowned. Then leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, frowning even harder. “Good tea needs no additions. But this is not good tea. Desperate times call for desperate measures. We will have a look around, and see what sorts of juices could be made in Burning Flag City.”
Liren nodded, her face grave. “And the witnesses?”
“None shall know why we are buying the fruit, and we can seal the courtyard when we commit the crime. Oh, you mean the other thing. Well, that’s why we are going to have a walk around. We need to, as we expert schemers say, look at the place we are going to do the robbery-murder. Let’s have a word with Daoist Sweetdove. I have a feeling anyone with an honor name like that won’t want to be caught in the middle of things. Maybe we could hint that she should scram.”
They finished breakfast, tidied up, and set out for the day.
“Please. I am seriously asking you. Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Tian asked, all innocence.
“You know what.”
“It’s a hot, sunny day. I need something to keep the sun off me. This is a perfectly lovely umbrella. Brother Dogleg got it for me, and some of his brothers fixed it up. Look, you can’t even see where it was repaired.”
“It is lovely. It suits you shockingly well. I’m seriously considering investing in an umbrella maker, just to keep you supplied with them. At the same time, I’m not sure my heart can take it. Zihao, please. You are pretty enough as it is. I don’t want to deal with armies of hungry young misses and outraged men besieging you. You saw how Han looked at you. Our being around mortals has an impact. You will mess up a big piece of the whole city if you go out like that.”
Tian looked at Liren closely. She had turned her head away by the time she finished talking, a high blush on her neck and cheeks. Her words had gotten a lot faster too.
He reached out, and cupped her face. “You will always be the one I look at. What if I were to wear a hat instead?”
“That would be wonderful. Thank you.” The words were heavy with meaning. She leaned into his hand, her cheek warm in the cup of his palm.
Burning Flag City hadn’t changed much in terms of architecture since they had last visited. The buildings were a uniform height, uniform dimension and built flush against one another. Each coated in cement and stone, to serve as internal fortifications or fire breaks, as needed. What had changed was the people, and the change had come in just the last few days.
The people walked down the middle of the street. They spoke loudly, ate sloppily, complained loudly about the lack of food, not out of fear, but because they couldn’t cook their favorite dishes. Were the steppe tribes still out there? Were they still dangerous? Did they still yearn to conquer Burning Flag City and plunge her people into servitude and misery? Yes, of course. And they would fail.
Burning Flag City was protected by the heavens themselves. Burning Flag City was a blessed place. The Martyr Venerable burned away his life and hope of reincarnation, all to save an innocent child and wake the city to the corruption within. Because of his sacrifice, the heretics were purged. Great merchant houses were leveled, their ill gotten treasure used to compensate those they hurt and to make improvements to the city. One of those improvements was a shrine honoring the Martyr Venerable. It had become a point of civic pride that while you could go hungry, there was always at least one stick of incense burning in the shrine, and at least one offering of vegetarian food.
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Those who had sacrificed were feeling especially, loudly, smug these days. Immortals had returned to the city in its hour of need. True, heavenly immortals. The soldiers reported that two strayed fairies descended from the heavens, alerting them to an ambush. They stopped the Dire Wolf Grand Shaman, fought him until he was forced to flee, fought him until that hateful ghoul abandoned his own devotees and escaped across the grasslands on his green furred horse.
That would have been enough. That would have been blessings enough for generations. But they didn’t stop there. They healed the wounded soldiers, not discriminating between mortal and immortal, officer or enlisted. The soldiers showed faint patches of puckered pink skin that were all that remained of a sword through the guts, or the bare patch of scalp that insisted an axe had landed there. Fatal wounds? What was that? There were those who lived, and those unlucky enough to die before the Emissary of Heaven’s Mercy could reach them.
There were new prayers offered before family shrines these days, praying the Martyr Venerable would protect them from devils, the Guardian Fairy would protect them from villains, and the Emissary of Heaven’s Mercy would keep away all sickness and disease.
It was working, too. After the soldiers came, messengers raced in on lathered horses, leaping off as their poor beasts dropped dead at the castle gates. There was a momentary fear of an oncoming invasion, or the announcement of a new disaster. It was nothing of the kind. Rumors were spreading through the city, leaping from eager mouths to anxious ears. Something new had come. New knowledge about how to grow stronger, stave off sickness and disease, how to survive famines and disasters. The knowledge wouldn’t be hidden either. It was going to be proclaimed and spread through the city any day now.
There would be no hiding it. No trying to hoard the knowledge, keeping it just for the rich merchants or the City Lord. Not when the King Of Hell knelt in the Grand Shrine before the Demon’s Finger, leading his personal retinue to offer their respects and make sacrifices to the Martyr Venerable. Things were done properly and according to the law, when the shadow of the King of Hell fell on a city.
Tian was fascinated by the way the people of the city spoke about Hanshen. They wouldn’t mention him by name, only by epithet. They would only speak of him when standing in the light, and never gesturing with their left hand when emphasising his deeds. He was a figure of dread. Clouds of tormented spirits followed him. The souls of those slain by his Dragon’s Contempt Sword were trapped in the Nine Hells Carriage, made to kneel on blazing iron boards and repent in this world, before being sent below.
It was only fair, the rumors said, that King Yan be given the chance to weigh in on sentencing. The boss always had to look involved even as his subordinate was doing all the actual work.
The thing was, they feared Hanshen, and dreaded him, and whispered about him, but they didn’t hate him. He wasn’t a figure of contempt. He was the Pale Magistrate, the Lord Inquisitor, The Emperor’s Scourge. He put entire families to death, yes, but they were merchant families, or landlords. Most of all, they were the senior civil service.
The once-untouchable bureaucratic masters of the land found that their robes of office had lost their talismanic power. The buttons on their hats, precious stones, ivories and corals that once proudly proclaimed their precise status and authority to the world, were now matted and stained with their former owner’s blood.
It was well known, a universally accepted fact, that there was a chest in the Nine Hells Carriage, big enough to bury a man, and it was being filled with the hat buttons of executed corrupt officials. What would he do when the chest could hold no more? He was the King of Hell. He already had a second chest empty and waiting.
“He’s become another guardian god for the people. What do you want to bet he gets his own shrine?” Liren grinned under her veil. Tian shook his head.
“He won’t. I figured out why he’s praying to the Martyr Venerable. No doubt he is here on imperial business, but I get why he’s in the shrine so much. Remind me later to find out about his family.”
Daoist Sweetdove was dressed rather similarly to Liren, with white silk gloves and a veil that stretched from the brim of her wide hat to half way down her chest and back. That was where the similarities ended, however. Liren hadn’t had a chance to find suitably gaudy robes. Daoist Sweetdove had been a Heavenly Realm cultivator for centuries, and wanted to make sure everyone knew it.
Long robes in flowing yellow, exquisitely embroidered with drifting flowers in a fascinating variety of whirling chrysanthemums, with threads of silk, and cotton, and more obscure material Tian couldn’t put names to. It wasn’t the most exquisite robe Tian had ever seen, but it was far, far better than any he had seen in the low country before.
Befitting an artist, she was painting the scenes in and around the shrine. Tian’s appreciation for painting had been sharpened by Liren, but he was a long way from being knowledgeable. The subtleties of what she was doing eluded him. The fact that the painting carried a certain dao charm did not. She painted the way he played the flute or made tea.
There are myriad roads to the dao. If you think about it, a dao that focuses on peaceful observation, reflection and self expression, is extremely worthy. Not easy. No world with cultivators is an easy one. But very worthy.
“What is she doing, Grandpa?”
Painting. Just painting. Recording the flow of people, and more importantly, the flow of their hearts. Be a little careful with her, Grandson. She isn’t your enemy, and doesn’t have to become one. But you can’t trust her either. Find the balance.
Tian thought that made sense. He approached Sweetdove with soft steps. She had known they were coming, of course, but was clearly confident she could handle them if things went wrong. It was an unsubtle sort of subtlety. Tian cupped his hands and bowed, waiting for her to lower her brush.
“I think I can guess which of you is the Emissary of Heaven’s Mercy, and which of you is the Guardian Fairy.” Daoist Sweetdove stood, clasped her hands, and returned his bow. “This inadequate painter is called Sweedove, an elder of the Myriad Waters Sect. It is said that no one visits a temple without a reason, but before I learn your reason for visiting, might I shamelessly ask you a favor?”
Sweetdove bowed towards Liren. “Might I have the honor of painting your portrait?”
“Pardon?” Tian was proud of Liren. She kept her voice remarkably flat.
“How often can one paint a Goddess from life?” You could hear the smile in her voice, and see the hope in her clenched hands. Daoist Sweetdove was entirely sincere.